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Conflict Incident Report
Scammers trick fleeing workers, hand them over to authorities
Three Lebanese nationals were arrested on claims they were part of a network of employment scammers, the Internal Security Forces announced over the weekend.
The network’s mastermind, identified as A.Aa., born in 1977, was wanted for previous offenses. Members Kh.A., born in 1985, and Aa.Z., born in 1973, were arrested separately as a result of intense investigations, the ISF said in a statement released Saturday.
Their arrest came after the Jan. 30 capture of Syrian national M.J., born in 1967. During interrogations, M.J. admitted that he and several others had formed a network that had scammed over 100 Ethiopian nationals with the promise of work. The network took between $200 and $1,000 from the women, the ISF statement said.
The three detainees admitted that they had tricked Ethiopian domestic workers who had fled their employers’ houses with no identity documents, saying they would fly them to Turkey.
The women were driven to nearby security checkpoints and the conspirators contacted the authorities to hand the women in, the statement said. Investigations are ongoing within the judiciary to arrest the remaining accomplices. The investigations were carried out by the ISF’s Human Trafficking Unit.